The Devils are spooked. Even Martin Brodeur is discarding his ancient lucky charm.

They are desperate to snap a dreadful, two-game skid when the Panthers visit the Meadowlands tonight. So, the two-time reigning Vezina Trophy winner says he plans to replace the oft-repaired arm and chest protector he has worn for more than a decade, parts of it back to his junior days.

“It’s a good time to change stuff. You don’t want to do that when you’re on a 10-game winning streak,” Brodeur said.

Pointing to a sizeable black-and-blue bruise on his right shoulder, courtesy a shot by the Rangers’ Maxim Kondratiev, Brodeur authorized the anticipated switch to the gear that features more hard plastic, instead of the graying, grungy softer vintage padding.

“I have to get more protection,” Brodeur said.

He wasn’t talking about his team’s defense, though that’s an issue, too. Still, Brodeur shoulders a large share of the blame for the two collapses to the Rangers and Hurricanes, yielding three bad goals among the 10 scored by those two teams.

Brodeur’s new pads are not the only change the Devils are making. Several players have discarded feel-good amulets.

Even Larry Robinson is switching things up. He is likely to break up the combination of Scott Gomez and Alexander Mogilny he had such hopes for in preseason.

“We have to do something,” Gomez said. “Everybody’s embarrassed.”

Despite his standing as one of the league’s premier puck-carriers, Gomez preached last week that the Devils have to start dumping the puck deep and exploit the new interference guidelines to regain control.

“We all know I hate to dump it in, but when things are going bad, you have to do it,” Gomez said.

Said Robinson, “We’ve never really been a dump-and-chase team. We always scored a lot of goals off the rush. But that was the old rules.”

Robinson is expected to partner Alexander Mogilny with Viktor Kozlov and rookie Zach Parise, while Brian Gionta was aligned with Gomez and Sergei Brylin in practice.

“It’s a little crisis,” Brodeur said of their 2-3 start.

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Woes continue on defense, where Colin White (groin) and Vladimir Malakhov (bruise) sat out practice yesterday. White is questionable for tonight while Robinson expects Malakhov to play. Paul Martin expects to return from a back strain after sitting out two games.